RCA Announces Student Culinology Competition Winners

ATLANTAThe Research Chefs Association (RCA) announced winners of its fourth annual Student Culinology® Competition on March 20 at the Hyatt Regency Phoenix Hotel during the RCA Annual Luncheon. The competition, supported by Competition Star Sponsors National Starch Food Innovation, Millennium Foods and N.K. Hurst Company and Competition Ingredient Sponsors David Michael & Co. and SupHerb Farms, is designed to challenge and recognize the industry's young talent in the culinology field.

The student team from Johnson & Wales UniversityProvidence took first-place honors, along with a $5,000 cash award and industrywide recognition as rising stars in food product development. Their award was presented by Agnes Jones, principal culinologist at National Starch Food Innovation, at the luncheon, where nearly 500 food product development professionals gather each year to celebrate industry achievements.

The winning team from JWU was led by faculty adviser Lynn Tripp, associate professor, and team leader Daniel Marciani. Team members included and Sarah Gouse, Joo Sang (Jenna) Jeong, and Eric Minnich. In 2008, Johnson & Wales took first place in the competition and placed second last year.

Their winning entry was a gourmet meal titled The Southwestern Black & Blue. The meal consisted of a blue corn tortilla stuffed with a black bean and quinoa filling, accompanied by chipotle roasted potatoes and southwestern succotash, paired with a roasted red pepper and chimi churri sauce.

A student team from the University of Cincinnati placed second, and the University of Guelph placed third. 

The competing teams each developed a frozen, restaurant quality gourmet vegetarian meal for one for a fictional retail grocery channel, which included both the gold standard recipes and the corresponding product formulations. The meal had to be inspired by Southwestern cuisine. One week prior to the competition, each team shipped their pre-portioned, frozen meal items to the event location. On-site at the live competition in Phoenix, teams prepared their fresh, gold standard menu items.

In a Culinology Match Test, competition judges compared each teams reheated and plated frozen items against their corresponding freshly prepared items on the day of the event. The competition focused on various Culinology elements, such as flavor, aroma, texture, ingredient composition, presentation, and authenticity, among many other components.